Marin County stands to receive $13 million in state funding for a farmers market and food innovation hub under California's latest budget.

The allocation is part of a $1.3 billion package of lawmaker-directed earmarks in Assembly Bill 113, flagged in a CalMatters and Local News Matters investigation published Tuesday, Sept. 15. Reporters compiled hundreds of earmarks steered to lawmakers' home districts through a process so opaque that no legislator's name is attached to individual requests.

The earmark could affect southern Marin residents both as county taxpayers and as regular visitors to the Civic Center farmers market in San Rafael.

No lawmaker has publicly claimed the Marin earmark. CalMatters reported that Gov. Gavin Newsom, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón all declined to answer questions about specific projects. A spokesperson for Newsom, Tara Gallegos, said in a statement that the investments reflect a commitment to stronger, healthier communities statewide.

The earmark closely mirrors a request the Marin County Board of Supervisors made in November 2024. In a letter to Newsom, then-Board President Dennis Rodoni asked for $10 million in state funding matched by $3 million in local county funds, totaling $13 million, to support North Bay small-scale agriculture, dairy and ranching.

That proposal would have spent $5 million on a five-year state regulatory reform pilot, $3.5 million on a North Bay agricultural worker housing fund, $1.5 million on agritourism and new economic opportunities, and $3 million in local funds on infrastructure and rural housing. The letter also cited the Agricultural Institute of Marin's planned Center for Food and Agriculture at the Civic Center campus.

The connection between the 2024 request and the 2026 earmark has not been officially confirmed. No statement from the Board of Supervisors, any individual supervisor or the Agricultural Institute of Marin about the earmark appeared in public records as of Wednesday, Sept. 16.

The Agricultural Institute of Marin (AIM) operates the weekly farmers market at the Civic Center's Veterans Memorial Auditorium parking lot. The county has been working with AIM to build a permanent home for the market on the campus, according to the Marin Independent Journal.

County Executive Derek Johnson told the Board of Supervisors in Aug. 2026 that the county has "a very ambitious, capital improvement program" for the Civic Center.

Rodoni's 2024 letter noted that 25 small-scale agricultural operations in Marin had closed over the previous decade, including eight dairies. The county's 121,800 acres of active farmland represent nearly one-fifth of its total area.

Statewide, the CalMatters investigation found that more than $550 million of the $1.3 billion in earmarks went to nongovernmental organizations, mostly nonprofits. Seventeen counties, mostly lower-population rural areas represented by Republicans, received no earmark funding at all.

Marin County also appeared in the package through a separate $4 million allocation to the Redwood High School Foundation for a capital project. CalMatters noted Redwood High is Newsom's alma mater.

No public hearing or implementation timeline for the $13 million allocation has been announced.